In a hollow telescopic fishing rod, a fishing line passes through a path for the fishing line installed inside the fishing rod body at times of winding and dewinding. At such times, the line touches the inner surface of the path for the line, producing friction resistance which results in difficulties in smooth winding and dewinding of the line.
To alleviate this problem, a technology to reduce such friction resistance has been proposed. In the Japanese Provisional Publication No. 341133 of the 1992 Official Gazette, there is an introduction of a technology to bury guide rings made of a linear substance whose cross-sectional shape is a circle inside the rod body, allowing part of each ring to project out from the inner circumference of the path for the line. There, the intention is to reduce the friction resistance by holding a fishing line away from the inner circumference of the path for the line by the linear substance whose cross-sectional shape is a circle.
This technology, however, raises a problem in that the linear substance easily comes off the rod body, as part of the linear substance is simply buried in the rod body. The linear substance, whose cross-sectional shape is a circle, and a fishing line whose cross-sectional shape is also a circle make a point contact. Large stress is given to the contact point and the linear substance can easily come off. There is also a problem in that the linear substance or the fishing line could wear out or the durability of the fishing line could be hindered.
The technology indicated in the Japanese Patent Application No. 88259 of 1993 has been proposed to solve such problems. This technology is to form concaves and convexes in a spiral on the inner surface of the rod body. This is done by winding resin tape around a mandrel, which is used to manufacture the rod body of fiber-reinforced resin. The resin tape is wound in a spiral, prepreg is wound over it, the assembly is hardened in a customary way, for example by baking. Then, the resin tape is removed from the inner surface of the manufactured rod body. The concaves and convexes formed in a spiral are used as a structure to support the fishing line. In the case of this technology, the convexes in a spiral which work to support the line are made by monobloc forming using the same material as the fishing rod body. The convexes hardly come off the rod body and hence have excellent durability. As the top surface of the convexes have a certain area, the contact area with the fishing line is adequate and generation of excessive contact stress given to the convexes or to the line can be avoided.
According to the aforesaid technology which employs the convexes placed in a spiral, a great variance could be generated in the line-holding function depending on the positioning of the convexes in the spiral. In certain configurations of the convexes, the contact stress to the line could be excessive and the line could wear out. Even in the cases in which the convexes are formed in monobloc with the rod body, when the contact resistance given by the line becomes excessive or when it is used for a long time, those convexes could come off the main body of the rod or be deformed.
The objective of this invention is to sufficiently reduce the contact resistance given to the line as well as to improve the durability of the line and the line-holding structure by preventing damage to them.